From: david.brown@hesbynett.no   
      
   On 04/12/2021 04:40, luser droog wrote:   
   > On Friday, December 3, 2021 at 3:02:26 AM UTC-6, David Brown wrote:   
      
   >>   
   >> Every now and again I also hear about some new chip designed around the   
   >> model of a sea of simple computing units that each do a small part of   
   >> the overall work. This is different from cellular automata networks   
   >> (where each cell has the same program and configuration) and neural   
   >> networks (where each cell has the same program but different   
   >> configuration, or connections and weights).   
   >   
   > That's interesting. That reminds me of one of the things Chuck Moore (Forth)   
   > was working on, I think it was called GreenArrays.   
   >   
      
   Yes, that is an example of such things.  Utterly horrible.  I mean,   
   Forth is okay as a language if you want something very low level and   
   compact, and it's a good basis for minimal processors.  (4-bit   
   microcontrollers usually have a Forth-like assembly.)  But it is a   
   language that is easy to abuse to produce stuff that is incomprehensible   
   even to experts.  "Color Forth", Moore's latest idea, adds colour coding   
   to change the meaning of code, and splitting everything up into small   
   parts that you have to place and route manually makes it a complete   
   mess.  The result is something that can't be used sensibly for anything   
   that would traditionally be done in software, but can be used to make   
   software-defined peripherals that are massively more complex,   
   power-consuming and expensive than just using normal hardware   
   peripherals.  (An application note proudly demonstrates how to make a 10   
   MB Ethernet interface using most of the resources of the $20 chip and   
   software that is much more complex than you need for making a 100 MB MAC   
   in an FPGA at a fraction of the price - or that you can buy in a $2   
   microcontroller.)   
      
   It's good that people try different ideas from the mainstream - that is   
   often how innovation occurs.  Mostly, however, they are dead-ends.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)